Our Story: The Queen and Her King
by ShatteredLyre
Summary: A series of 121 shorts chronicling the 121 months Yoh and Anna have known, tolerated and grown to love each other. For 121 Theme Challenge.
1. Crossing Paths

**Note: **based on a challenge I found on the internet: write a series about any pairing using 121 given themes.

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**1. Crossing Paths**

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**Yoh looked up at the sky in a daze, lying down flat on his back (not on his own accord at first) and just moaned. Lights were flashing somewhere between his retinas and his eyelids and he began to register pain.

Lots and lots of pain.

He whimpered as he tried rolling onto his side and then collapsed. In all ten years of his life, he had never been injured this badly. Quite a feat considering that he was first off a boy and second off in the fifth grade (and as everyone knows, ten year old boys go together with rough housing and fighting like peanut butter goes with jelly). He managed to push himself up and sat on the floor, his head spinning a mile a minute. _Okay, Yoh. Try to remember what happened before you got the living crud beat out of you_.

As he scratched his head, his wrist scratched against a scrap of broken plastic and metal that had been wedged into his shoulder. "What the--" He reached around his neck to remove his headphones...or at least whatever was left of them. "You've gotta be kidding me!" the poor boy exclaimed as he tearfully surveyed the damage. The plastic band that connected the two earphones was completely bent out of shape, parts of it snapped off with...blood all over it?

"Huh...I'm bleeding." Yoh stared at his shoulder until his eyes widened with comprehension and the belated realization he usually had. "I'm bleeding!" he cried and immediately commenced to completely freak out.

"Yoh!" The boy who was almost on the verge of tears turned around. "There you are. I was wondering where you wondered off to." Matamune walked over to him. As he approached closer to Yoh, his footsteps slowed down until the came to a complete stop. The cat blinked. "What...happened to you?"

"I...That's what I'm trying to figure out," he lamented.

"Were you robbed?" Matamune observed Yoh's destroyed headphones. "Ah...not that you have anything worth stealing."

Yoh sniffed. _The girl_. He lit up. "Oh, yeah. The girl!"

"What? Did you engage in a fight with another boy over a girl?" The cat frowned. "From the looks of it, it appears that you took on an entire mob of boys and lost." Yoh winced as the diminutive feline prodded one of his battle wounds. "Very badly, might I add."

"Thanks, Matamune." Yoh sighed. "No...I'm starting to remember now. I was walking down the street to the grocery store because grandma wanted some milk before our guest arrived and then I saw this girl. I thought she was really pretty and then all of a sudden..." Yoh paused, his mouth slightly hanging open. "All of sudden she glares at me. So I thought that maybe I was staring at her and being really rude so I said hi to her and then..."

"And then what?" Matamune helped the young boy to his feet.

"Then she tells me that she's gonna kill me!" he exclaimed. "And the next thing I know, I'm on my back on the floor and it feels like someone stepped all over me."

"And your dignity," Matamune chuckled to himself.

"It's not funny! How can you be laughing? If she ever sees me again, I'm a goner!" Yoh protested. "There's nothing that can make this day worse."

"Ah, pardon me for finding your situation to be rather humorous but..."

Yoh's jaw hit the floor, his eyes bugged out, and his entire body began shaking as Matamune uttered the only eight words that could indeed make his day any worse: "It seems that you have met your fiancee."

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**A/N**: okay...what am i doing. I should seriously not be starting this but...i couldn't help myself =) stay tuned as I will be releasing four other fics about my OTPs with the same 121 themes. wish me luck! i'm aiming to finish all five 121 theme series by the time I graduate in May. if anyone else is interested in doing the challenge as well, just say so in a review and I will hook you up


	2. First Moments

**2. First Moments**

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**"So I'll just leave the two of you alone for now," Kino said teasingly as she smiled at her grandson and her pupil. "Come, Matamune."

The cat obediently followed his long time friend out of the room. The wooden frame of the door clacked as it slid shut.

"So…"

"Talk to me and I'll kill you." Her eyebrows seemed permanently drawn together in anger.

"Wait, wha—"

"Finish that sentence and I'll kill you." She turned on her heel quickly and began strutting away.

"Now hold on here—"

In a flash, she was standing a mere two inches away from Yoh's face. "_Breathe_ and I'll kill you."

He whimpered and she stalked out of the room. "I thought I taught you enough of a lesson back in the market," she said through the doors. He bit his lip, uncertain whether his response will elicit another death threat from her. "Or perhaps you're simply too stupid to comprehend that." She made a little _hmph_-ing noise of affirmation. "That would explain a lot…" she muttered. "Such as your current inability to speak."

_I was hoping Matamune was just kidding when he said she was my fiancée_, he mentally sniveled. "Why did you beat me up?" he managed to croak. "You broke my headphones…" _I spent all my birthday money on those too._

He heard the very meticulously controlled exhale of the girl from the other side of the door. "And you're to be the Asakura heir?" she inquired acidly, her words cutting deep into the poor boy.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded, his anger rising a bit. Sure, he…_let…_her beat him up since…because…well…you know. You couldn't hit a girl. Or something. That and she probably would've ripped his arms off and shoved them down his throat if he showed any resistance. And he had the strength of a hopelessly intoxicated sloth that was addled by muscle deterioration. _But_! But he wouldn't let his dignity, his pride, his worth as a human being be trampled, spit on, and discarded by this…this…this…_blond jerkface!_ he thought fiercely.

"It means stay out of my way and perhaps I will let you live." She said the last part of her statement so chillingly, so disturbingly, so icily, that Yoh Asakura, along with his dignity, pride, and worth as a human being, withered where he stood.

And with that, he heard the retreating footsteps echo in the otherwise quiet and abandoned house as she walked away.

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**A/N:** so god knows why I waited so long to update this. I'll be much faster in adding new chapters. MUCH. also, for those who are/were interested in doing the challenge, the link can be found on my profile. happy days and it would be absolutely swell if you left a review! much appreciated.


	3. Understanding

**3. Understanding**

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**"You're…scared," Yoh said quietly as he walked over to where the shaking girl was splayed out on the ground like some sort of pathetic marionette that had been tossed away and forgotten by its violent owner after a temper tantrum. He painfully observed how she made some sort of noise of protest and used every fiber of her half-conscious being to move away from his touch when he reached out to help her up. He managed to straighten up the very much unwilling Anna. "How long has this been going on?"

"What? The demon coming out? Or the…this…" She bitterly shoved the sleeve of her robe up to reveal a dark, sickly looking trail of bruises winding their way up the startlingly white skin of her arm.

"Both."

Her usually acerbic demeanor slipped away for a moment as she saw that this boy, this strange, foreign, slightly oafish boy actually was concerned for her well being. "For as long as I can remember," she revealed breathily, the soreness of her bruising beginning to throb and settle in.

"Why do they do this?" he asked sadly, rocking back and forth on his heels as if he was bursting to do _something_ to help. He just didn't know what that _something_ was yet.

"They don't understand," she told him simply. "They're scared."

"But don't they get that you're scared too?"

"They don't understand," Anna repeated flatly, roughly seizing the edge of her pushed up sleeve and jerking it down forcefully to conceal the evidence of yet another of the almost daily beatings she endured from the villagers. She batted his hands away and drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them securely. She rested her forehead against her kneecaps but Yoh was able to see the very epitome, the very definition, the very _essence_ of suffering glance across her face before her hair totally obscured it from view. "And I'm not…"

"Scared?" He put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. He winced a little as he realized that he hadn't completely thought out the action and had forgotten she hated being touched.

To his surprise, he felt her body wrench up pathetically as if to meet his touch and in that moment he knew that she was starved of affection and caring. Starved of human contact. His breath caught in his throat as he felt a shiver course through her body and heave. "Are you going to leave me now?" she whispered to her knees. "Like the rest."

"Nope." He shook his head and knelt next to her.

Anna raised her head and looked at him skeptically. "Why?"

"Because I understand."

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**A/N**: yeah. up to the readers to decide if they want daily updates or every other day updates. i am now capable of doing either. leave your preference in the review. sorry for the lack of updates. I have by no means forgotten _Critical Condition_. however in these past two weeks, something very earth shattering for me has happened and i hate to say this but my former spark and absolute, flat out **love** of writing has waned to the point that I didn't really see the point anymore and didn't want to write ever again. luckily, i feel like i'm on the way back to my old self in terms of actually wanting to write and such. i hope you all do forgive me. I'm trying not to go flat out emo/angst on you guys but i think you do need (and deserve) an explanation for my (lack of) actions. I'll elaborate more when I post the next chapter of _Critical Condition_.


	4. Friendship

**4. Friendship**

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**"Well, would you ever have guessed?" Kino asked in wonderment.

Matamune didn't reply, opting to stand and gape at the scene he and Kino were witnessing through the ajar door that led into Anna's room.

"Dumbstruck?" Kino asked, this time to tease Matamune.

The cat nodded slowly. The two had been watching Anna and Yoh for the past five minutes as they sat next to each other. _Civilly_ sat next to each other. At first, Matamune thought that perhaps his poor boy had been coerced and forced into doing Anna's bidding but from the looks of it, Yoh appeared to be there on his own accord. "I cannot believe it."

"Neither can I," Kino said, beginning to walk away. "Come now, you know it's rude to eavesdrop and stare."

But Matamune was unable to tear his gaze from the very extraordinary spectacle he was witnessing.

Anna, in the meantime, had been sitting in front of the TV, absolutely _stewing_. She didn't even need her mind reading abilities to be able to hear Matamune and Kino outside the room. Already embarrassed enough to have a _boy_ in her room for the first time, she didn't need those two oldies watching them and _commentating_.

Matamune heard Anna mumble something along the lines of "I'll be right back. I'm going to get some water." He reeled back rather belatedly as he saw the furious girl stomping towards him.

"Ah…h-hello, Miss Anna," he stuttered out as she took two quick steps to completely exit the room and shut the door behind her.

She glared daggers at him, her hands digging into her arms as she crossed them in front of her chest. "Don't try that with me."

Matamune had been able to regain his standard cool and collected composure as he could barely keep from grinning up at the infuriated child. "So…"

"What?" she snapped even though she already knew what he was thinking about. Matamune's inner, mental snickers rang around in her head mockingly.

"It appears that you have gotten…quite _comfortable_ around Yoh. Perhaps you are…I do not know…dare I say, _fond_ of the boy?" he posited in a faux-offhanded manner.

Anna's eyes bugged out, her mouth dropped, and her hands balled up into fists. And of course, her face was absolutely on fire. It was one thing to read his thoughts on the matter but to actually hear that stupid little anthropomorphic cat say it out _loud_? How preposterously _humiliating_!

"N-No!" came her ever so scathing, eloquent reply.

The cat smirked back, the corners of his mouth threatening to pull back into a loud guffaw. "Despite your…_avid_ protests, it looks like Anna has a new friend."

"We're _not_ friends," she replied curtly, as if to not even grace such a ludicrous idea with a reaction. "By no means."

"By no means?"

"By no means," she said with a note of finality in her voice.

"So if you are neither fond of nor _friends_ with him, you should not be self-conscious, hmm?" he asked, challenging her flimsy claims.

"I am _not_…self-conscious!" she spluttered out. "Can't you go away already? I'm missing Awayaringo because of you." She jumped a bit when she heard the dulcet notes of the enka singer be suddenly replaced by the crooning of a reggae artist, no doubt Yoh timidly changing the channel to watch that Bob Love character he kept yammering about.

"Oh! _I'm_ not the one forcing you to miss your program. You didn't have to come out here to speak to me!" Matamune's grin looked like it would stretch off of his face.

"And have you spying on us the entire time?" Anna asked incredulously. "Over my dead body."

"But you do not like the boy, why would you care that I'm spying on you?"

Anna was left speechless.

"So you _are_ self-conscious!" he laughed. "Ah, well, I suppose I should just leave you be with your _friend_ now." The cat walked away, quite satisfied with himself.

_I swear, if I have to go through this every time I am around a boy I'm…I'm…I'm never going to spend time with a boy again!_ she thought resolutely to herself. _They'll have to yank me by the hair and chain me to a chair to get me to be around a boy!_ She stood there, jaw clenched.

The door slowly slid open. Yoh poked his head outside a bit shyly. "Anna?"

She jerked forward in surprise and turned around. "What do you want?" she snapped.

He shrunk back a little into the room. "I…I was just getting a little worried. You were away for a long time. I thought something might have happened," he explained sheepishly. "Sorry…"

"Uh…no. Nothing of importance happened," she said grumpily, thinking of her little talk with Matamune just a few seconds earlier.

Yoh straightened up a bit, his face brightening. "Oh, then do you want to go back to watching the TV show?" he asked hopefully.

Anna mentally slapped her forehead. _So much for yanking me by the hair and chaining me to a chair_. "Okay," she said a little too excitedly. "But we'll be watching Awayaringo. Not that Bob Love," she said darkly to make up for her emphatic tone which could have been misinterpreted as happy and agreeable.

Yoh broke out into an uncertain half-smile, not sure if she would beat him up for changing the channel without asking her.

_It looks like Anna has a new friend_.

That's what he had said. Anna trailed behind Yoh, her steps eventually coming to a stop a few feet from where he was sitting. She stared at his back. _Friend?_ Was Yoh her friend? More importantly, what _was_ a friend? She had never known. She had never heard the word spoken really, much less in regards to whether she was someone's friend. The only reason she had even known the word existed was from the countless hours of television she watched, the numerous books she had immersed herself in.

From what she gathered from her only outlets of knowledge concerning this "friendship" concept, friends…well, friends laughed together. They talked. They made each other happy and smile. They comforted each other when they were sad or upset. They spent time together doing things they enjoyed. They gave each other gifts sometimes when it was their birthday.

Yoh made her laugh whenever he tripped down the stairs or walked into a door. It was laughter at his expense but it was still laughter. And sometimes he would laugh at himself too in embarrassment.

She had been surprised when she felt happier than usual when Yoh shrugged off her insults and said that he'd stay with her. She'd smiled, of course, only when she returned to her room by herself. But still.

He made her feel better every time she came back from running errands and the villagers or Kino had been mean to her. He always touched her shoulder or her wrist and told her she'd be okay whenever she was recovering from an oni possession.

They had been watching their favorite shows together for the past couple of days. Or sometimes he would walk with her when she wanted to look at the trees outside. Or she would begrudgingly listen to whatever record Yoh had excitedly promised she'd _love_. (It almost always was a Bob Love CD and she discovered that she hated Bob Love. With a fiery, burning passion).

She never really knew when her birthday was since she was an orphan when Kino had taken in. When she told Yoh this, his jaw dropped. Then he subsequently protested that she _had_ to have a birthday. After a few minutes of silence, he officially told her, with an air of formality, that from here on out, her birthday would be celebrated on the tenth of every month. She told him that the tenth was coming up this Friday. He nodded and said that that was how he had planned it and told her that he was going to surprise her with something _awesome_.

Anna had cringed a bit. She didn't really like surprises.

Yoh turned around on the floor and motioned for her to join him in watching. She walked over and sat down. She didn't really know what the exact definition of friend was but she decided that maybe Yoh could be her first one. Maybe.

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**A/N: **this was a light-hearted, cute little chapter to write. Thank you so much for your support in your reviews! They really cheered me up and encouraged me a ton. I've just published a new story _The Heavy Hearts Brigade_ which I've had sitting around on my computer for the past several months. I don't know why I never got around to posting it. I hope you do enjoy this chapter and _The Heavy Hearts Brigade_ (which is going to be my last planned dramatic piece on this site). I encourage you all, if you have any story requests, do leave them in your reviews! Just tell me the pairing, a situation, title name, prompt, anything you desire. And I'll make it happen =) happy days to you all! it would be lovely if you reviewed.


	5. Betrayal

**5. Betrayal**

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**He didn't want to let her see him. Not like this. Never like this. Yoh had been hoping that things would've been…different.

From how he was back home.

From how he had been treated in school.

From how he had felt alone.

And then he had found her. _Her_. Anna. She understood. And he could've been someone else. Have a fresh start. That's why….

_I wanted to make her happy_.

But then Fate or whatever makes things work out the way they do had finally found enough time to stop laughing at his assumptions and wishes so that it could finally kick back in and start screwing over Yoh Asakura once again.

_Hey, who's that?_

_Eh, who cares._

_Wait a minute, that kid's staying with that other freak girl._

_You mean that weird kid who hates everyone here?_

_Yeah. He also thinks he can see ghosts!_

_What a freak!_

_Hey, Ghost Boy! Think fast!_

He didn't want to make a scene. It had never been and never would be his style. He just wanted to go down to the market so he could get Anna a present. But things would, as Yoh would realize later, ever be that simple with the two of them. Yoh and Anna.

So now he found himself, bruised and with several startlingly red cuts on his elbows and knees and a huge bump swelling on his head from where a few of them had thrown rocks at him, staring at the door that would lead him into his grandmother's house. He didn't want her to see how was weak and feared and ridiculed.

He was more than two hours late than the time he had told Anna he'd be back. He cringed, knowing that she would be sad or angry or upset because he hadn't kept his word. What did it matter that he had tried his hardest, his very best to be on time and keep his promise? In the end, he was late and that was all that mattered. Though it sounded silly to anyone else on the planet that being a couple of hours delayed was such a big deal, but Yoh understand Anna and Anna understood Yoh. They knew what being betrayed felt like.

They understood pain. How Yoh's mother would wipe away the tears he had been holding back during the entire school day when he got home. How she would promise that _yes, tomorrow_ would_ be different, just you wait!_ How nothing would ever be different except for the various ways the other kids would make fun of him. How Kino would yell at her that the way Anna was behaving was not suited for the future wife of the Asakura heir. How her being the fiancée of the Asakura line made no difference in how the people down at the market or up at the temple treated her. Mistreated her.

He reached up to knock on the door but before his knuckles met the wooden surface, it swung open. Anna's eyes widened and she froze mid-step.

Yoh was wrong, she wasn't sad or angry or upset.

It was worse. Betrayal coursed throughout her entire being.

And both of them could hear how two hearts breaking in perfect time sounded like.

Her heart breaking not because he didn't keep his word but because she saw how he was treated the same way she was. And his heart breaking because he was the reason she wasn't happy.

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**A/N**: aaah, they're sad! =( anyways, i failed to mention that every 10 chapters in this story is equivalent to one year. (ie: chapters 1-10 is when they're both ten, chapters 11-20 is when they're eleven, chapters 21-30 is when they're twelve, etc. up until the end when they'll be twenty-two!) hooray! anyways, be sure to check out my other story _The Heavy Hearts Brigade_. I'm uploading its second chapter!

happy days to you all and make sure to leave a review! =)


	6. Bond

**6. Bond**

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**_"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to be together,  
regardless of time, place, or what happens.  
The thread may stretch or tangle in the chaos they meet,  
but it will never break."_

- an ancient Japanese belief

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Anna sighed and looked at her watch. Thanks to Yoh's little encounter, they had to postpone her so-called birthday by ten whole days. _Ten whole days_. Anyways, Anna thought the whole thing sounded a little bit…strange.

"_You_." She pointed an accusing finger at the boy who had just arrived at the train station.

"Hello to you too." He held up a shopping bag that undoubtedly contained her present. Anna mouthed the words subtly, liking the way the phrase sounded. _Her present_.

"I asked Kino what a birthday was." She crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently on the ground.

"Okay."

"She said people's birthdays come only once a year!" she exclaimed indignantly.

He took a bite out of a red bean bun. "So?" he asked, his speech a little slurred due to his full mouth.

"Where did you get those from?"

"They're for your birfday." He finally swallowed and held one out to her.

She blinked, not knowing what to do. She had never gotten to eat such a delicacy before. Kino only let her eat rice and sometimes bread. Once, she let her eat some chicken on Christmas.

"Take one," he said, prodding her with the carton. "It's just a red bean bun. It's not going to bite you."

Anna took one cautiously as if the pastry _was_ going to bite her and tentatively tasted it. "It's…good." Anna peered into the carton. One remaining bun was inside. "Matamune?"

He nodded, sorrow tingeing his features. "Could you…"

She gave her silent affirmation. "I'll take it to the temple after you leave."

He shook his head in an attempt to shake away any sad feelings that remained. He was determined to let Anna have a good day. "Anyways, so what if everyone else's birthdays come only once a year?" He shrugged. "You're not everyone else." He beamed at her, causing Anna to choke on the food in her mouth. "Fine, the twentieth of every month will be Anna Day then!" he proclaimed.

"It's also the day you're _leaving_," she grumbled, taking another bite. _And your train is leaving in ten minutes_.

He frowned, his shoulders sagging slightly. "Yeah…sorry about that. But I hafta go back to Izumo." He studied her face. "Hey, it's not like I _wanna_ go back!" he tried persuading her.

"Sure…You'll just go back to all your friends and then you'll meet another girl and then you'll forget about me."

"What! I couldn't do that. You're my fiancée!"

"Don't call me that," she said automatically though they both knew she rather enjoyed hearing that come from him.

"But it's true. I couldn't ever forget about you." He smiled at her and held out the shopping bag. "Come on, stop being sad. It's your day after all!"

She begrudgingly walked over to him to see what he had purchased for her.

"Look!" He pulled out two items to show her. "I saw this in the stand. I remember on the way to the temple you were looking at it for a really long time." He handed her a pinwheel.

She could hardly suppress her laughter. "Really?"

"Yeah! I liked them too back home." He flicked the edge of it, causing the pinwheel to spin hysterically. "They also say that you can make a wish on it."

She played around with the toy a bit before he reached back into the bag.

Anna looked down at the red scarf he had pulled out. "You got this for me?" She touched it. "You remembered." She felt the fine silk it had been woven out of. "Wasn't this expensive?" she asked almost offended that he bought something so nice for her.

"Eh, I just used my Christmas money I had saved up. I wasn't gonna buy anything with it anyways. Might as well, right? Want me to help you put it on?"

She nodded.

"There." He pulled the knot firmly so that it securely stayed on her head. "Oops, looks like your scarf already got a run in it."

Anna turned around to see what he was talking about. A loose thread had come out of the excess fabric of the scarf by her neck and spanned the distance between her and Yoh, the other end of the thread sticking to the cuff of his jacket. A red thread that connected them both. The red thread of fate.

It was to be their unbreakable eternal bond.

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**A/N**: aaaaaaand of course, as we all know since we're all Osorezan Revoir nerds, Anna goes on the stop after his and sits on the train awkwardly with him. meheh. they're so awkward. and adorable. ANYWAYS, aww Yoh left. well, he had to anyways. And I know people will be like "wtf? pinwheel? random much." actually, it's **not**. so I was rereading the second volume of SK with Yoh's flashback to his training with his grandpa, right? when he was like four years old. and Yohmei was describing the different kinds of shamans Yoh could be and it panned over to Kino. and the picture behind the description of Kino was Kino and Anna from the back presumably in Mount Osore since it's all snowy. and Anna is holding a pinwheel. YES I NOTICE THESE DETAILS. don't judge me! welllp, it would be absolutely fabulous if you left me a **review**! huzzah! and check out _The Heavy Hearts Brigade_. happy days =)


	7. Blood

**7. Blood**

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**"Hrmphhh!" Anna exclaimed again as she paused in her writing. She didn't want to raise her hand up because she was absolutely sure that she had once again made a mistake in her letter. She sighed and willed herself to do it. An ugly black blot of ink had leaked out from the pen she was using, totally obscuring several words around it. She winced as she began crumpling up the piece of paper. It had taken a huge amount of effort on her part, not to mention risking her life and several others, in order to just even acquire the measly amount of letter paper and treasured pen and ink from Kino. It involved a lot of sneaking around, booby trapping Kino's bedroom, and blaming the neighboring kids once her mentor found some of her writing supplies missing. But that's a different story.

Anna bit her lip and carefully stowed the discarded paper in the long sleeve of her shirt. She decided to give herself a break to rest both her hand and her mind before continuing (a wise decision considering that out of all thirteen pieces of paper she had managed to pilfer, only one single sheet remained). She reclined in her chair and closed her eyes, flexing her cramping up fingers.

"Hello!" she called out suddenly. She slowly shut her mouth out of embarrassment even if no one else was around to hear it. _Why did I just yell that out?_ she thought, trying to sort out her irrational behavior. "I suppose it was too quiet…" She leaned forward, resting her chin on her folded arms on the desk. "It's been so silent ever since Matamune passed away…" _And since Yoh went back home_. Her jaw snapped shut automatically as it always did whenever she felt that she was…_missing_ (Anna's eye twitched at the use of the word. It implied that she was _weak_) her fiancée.

Her first friend.

She felt blood beginning to seep out from the small wound, sweet and yet still unpleasant and unwanted.

Quite similar, one might say, to Yoh's departure nearly four months ago.

Anna snorted and shook her head of such a thought. _Such a _cheesy_ thought_, she thought disapprovingly to herself. Instead, she took a well worn piece of paper out from her pocket and read it for the one hundred twelfth time.

Not that she was counting or anything.

It was a letter that Yoh had sent to her, telling her of his daily training, his parents, his grandparents, summoning spirits, his studies, a shy girl named Tamao. Or something like that. It sounded like heaven to her. She quickly put it away and began writing, suddenly reinvigorated and inspired.

In her eagerness she whipped the last remaining piece of paper towards her, the fine edge of it whirring across the delicate flesh of her thumb. She immediately recoiled and her thumb instinctively flew to her mouth. She rolled her eyes at her reaction and extracted the finger from her nursing mouth.

"It's just a paper cut," she muttered, picking up the pen she had quickly dropped when she had incurred the small wound. The skin that was slashed had been thin, causing the blood that was just beneath the surface to pool up in a generous amount and drop, thick and heavy, spattering and spreading as intricate as a spider's web across the interwoven pulp strands of the last surviving eggshell white paper. The warm blood was rapidly absorbed by the fibers of her sheet as if the paper itself had been longing for something all its time to slake its perpetual thirst. The slightly sweaty soft skin of her hands agilely rubbed at it, instead ending up smearing the bright red trail of ribbons of blood until it was resolutely ingrained into her letter.

"Crap."

* * *

"Yoh, you have a—" Keiko held up an envelope in front of her son as soon as he entered the house after a long day at school.

"Letter?" His eyes, which had up until that point been tearing up, brightened as if someone had injected new life into him with a syringe.

"Yeah, from Osorezan. Honey, why are you—" Before she could finish her inquiry, Yoh had snatched the letter from her hands and darted up the stairs. "Crying." She sighed as she shut the door. "Those letters are the only thing that cheers him up nowadays," she mused to herself.

Yoh had in fact just returned from a particularly trying session from school. Normally, the standard run-of-the-mill insults about his ability to see ghosts never fazed him and he would brush them off with a simple shrugging of the shoulders and zoning out. But lately, some kid picked up at school that Yoh's parents were almost never home at the same time. The poor boy had already tried to become accustomed to the fact that his father was almost never home, growing up with Yohmei sometimes and with Keiko sometimes when she wasn't at the temple. Having his fellow classmates torment him about it on the playground was…well…

Yoh blew his nose on his sleeve and wiped away his remaining tears.

Enough said.

He stared at the envelope. He had missed having a friend. The only people who were nice to him were Keiko and Tamao. Keiko didn't count because she was his mother so it was her _job_ to be nice to him. And Tamao was kind enough but for some reason she always yelped and fled away every time he tried having more than a one sentence conversation with her. He just couldn't manage to shake that feeling of a master-servant dynamic whenever he talked to her.

Yoh smiled. "I hope she got the picture I sent her." The boy had received another pair of headphones from his mother when she had seen that he had returned from visiting his grandmother with a broken pair. And his birthday was coming up anyways. In his post-gift excitement, he had taken a Polaroid of his new present and sent it to Anna in his last letter. "I wonder what she said about them." He bent the corner of the sealed letter back forth in anticipation. But somehow he couldn't bring himself to open it quite yet. Curiously enough, he had deliberated over sending Anna the photograph for several days, anxious and even nervous of what she would say. How she would react. Her opinion.

You know the works.

He lugged the cardboard box filled with all the letters she had written to him over the past four months.

_I wonder if she saves mine._

He took a deep breath and tore open the envelope that was laden with stamps and discarded it. His hands were shaking so much that when he was unfolding it, it skimmed across his thumb, effectively cutting it, leaving behind an off white line of skin.

He winced as the acute burning pain set in and a pinprick of blood spilled out from the wound and into the left edge of the paper.

He bit his lip in an effort to keep from crying out.

On the opposite edge of the letter, there was an identical smear of color, but unlike the bright red one he created, it was an old rust hue. The two mirrored each other, creating a bloody design of conflicted bittersweet symmetry.

His and hers.

* * *

**A/N**: yet another installment of the delightful, engaged pairing Yohna. Anywhoo, if you guys are at all interested (probably not), I've started a fanfic progress livejournal so you can see which stories I'm working on and how far along I am. And you can also comment on it telling me to hurry my ass up with the next update haha:

shatteredlyre . livejournal . com (remove the spaces)

friend me if you so desire. also, a few of you have asked about other methods of getting to know me better other than via PM-ing. so, like every other teenager, i have a facebook. if you're interested in friending me and getting to know me a bit better, just leave it in your review and i'll PM you the link to my facebook. don't be shy, i'll add you back, i swear! :)

leave a review and make my day, you lovely people! :)


	8. Questioning

**8. Questioning**

**

* * *

**_What am I to him?_ Anna wondered as she swept the front steps of the house off, lest Kino yell at her once again for neglecting her chores for three days in a row now ("Three days in a row now!" her mentor had shouted at her on the way out, hurling the broom at Anna's general direction). She hadn't heard from Yoh in weeks and she had been deliberating whether or not she should send another letter to him.

_What if I just end up annoying him?_ She shook her head, resolved that that was probably what was going to happen. _Or what has already happened,_ she thought snidely to herself. It was only natural that he would tire of her constant inquiries into his life. She couldn't help it though. His life seemed so…so charmed, so idyllic.

_So perfect_. She sighed as she scooped up a small pile of leaves and flung it to her right, whacking one of the neighboring boys in the face as he just exited his house.

_Does he even think we're friends? Because he definitely is one of…mine_, she thought, willing not to call him 'her friend,' lest she jinx it. She skillfully avoided stepping on the parts of the grounds she had already cleaned, weaving her legs into an intricate, inherent dance of sorts (and also a very effective evasive maneuver, it turned out as her unpredictable movements made her a very hard target to hit for the poor boy she had assaulted earlier with the pile of leaves).

She clenched her teeth together and tossed the broom from one hand from the other, firmly jutting the bristles of her cleaning utensil of choice into the cement. _Anna, snap out of it. You are ice. You are strong. You are unfeeling. Stop…stop _sulking,_ girl. You don't sulk. You can brood forlornly and mysteriously so that you appear refined to other people but, sulking? That's just unladylike._ She exhaled sharply and turned around, narrowly missing getting hit by a water balloon the boy from next door had thrown at her.

_Kyoyama Anna does _not_ sulk._ She frowned. She hated always questioning herself. Uncertainty was not very befitting of her.

* * *

_What am I to her? _Yoh wondered as he bit on the end of his pencil. He probably really should've been taking his math test but he had better, more worrisome things to think about than what the numerical value of eleven times thirteen was. He lazily wrote down the symbol for pi underneath one of the equations, despite the fact that their class hadn't learned what pi was (and it was completely beyond him how he knew the symbol for it either).

_What if I just end up annoying her?_ He shook his own head. He had been deliberating whether or not he should send another letter to her, despite the fact she hadn't sent one to him in weeks. _I mean, she's so pretty and perfect. Why would she want to associate with such a dorky loser…like me?_

_Maybe it got lost in the mail._ He scrawled the Greek symbol for sigma underneath another problem on his test (perhaps he had somehow learned the Greek alphabet overnight when he was dreaming and his subconscious desire to practice his newfound knowledge decided to manifest itself via his nonsensical answers on his fifth grade math test. Or something.)

_Does she even think we're friends? Because she definitely is one of…mine_. His train of thought was interrupted when his teacher caught him staring out the window. Yoh immediately hunched back over the paper to put up appearances that he actually cared about school and work. (What a joke).

_Yoh, snap out of it. You are laid back. You are carefree. You are somewhat…lazy. Stop…stop sulking! You don't sulk. You can daydream and space out so that you appear empty-headed but, sulking? That's just uncool._ He let out another sigh and scribbled out an alpha sign before turning his test over and putting his head down on his desk.

_Asakura Yoh does _not_ sulk_. He sighed. He hated always questioning himself. Uncertainty was not very befitting of him.

* * *

**A/N: **Happy (belated) Valentine's Day/Single's Awareness Day! I for one had the worst one of my life, hooray! anyways, **TRIPLE **update today! this chapter, a chapter of _Heavy Hearts Brigade_, and a new story: _Europe Roundabout_ (for **Roni-chan's** winning bid for the Help Haiti! Auction) huzzah. it'd be awesome if you left a review! :) happy days


	9. Innocence

**quick note**: for those of you who missed the last update, this chapter would make a ton more sense if you read the previous one! :)

* * *

**9. Innocence**

**

* * *

**"Mom?" Yoh asked, as he played around with his soggy cereal. "Are you goin' to the temple again?"

Keiko smiled sadly, almost completely out the door. "Sorry, honey. I have a ceremony to perform today."

Yoh twisted his mouth to the side, trying to conceal his disappointment. "Oh." He slumped down a bit further in his chair and poked at his untouched breakfast with a spoon.

Keiko bit her lip. She had felt incredibly guilty already for barely being in Yoh's life when he needed her most. She nodded her head resolutely and straightened up. Forget the ceremony, it was high time she started acting like a mother. "Why, what's wrong?"

"Eh, it's nothing. You're gonna be late." He waved his hand, watching the milk drip down from his lifted up spoon.

"No, no, it'll be fine," she insisted, sitting down. "I'll just tell the others that I encountered a bit of traffic on the way to the temple."

Yoh raised an eyebrow at her. "Mom…_what_ traffic. We don't even have a _car_."

Keiko frowned. "That's…er…beside the point! Anyways, what did you want to talk about?"

Yoh let his spoon drop down into his bowl and he pushed it away. "Well…I mean…you're a girl, right?"

Keiko blinked. "Um…I'd…I'd like to think that I am…"

"Uh…yeah. Yeah. That was a dumb question. But…um, say that when you an' dad…before you were married…uh…" Yoh cut himself off, aware that he wasn't doing an effective job at explaining what he was feeling to his mother.

"Okay, start over," Keiko said, encouraging him gently.

"Alright. Well, back before you and dad got married, if he kept calling you over and over again, would you get annoyed?"

She drummed her fingers on top of the table as she formulated her answer. "I think that would depend. At what point in the relationship are we talking about? How well do we know each other? I mean, if he kept calling me after only the first time we met, then maybe it'd be a little bit annoying…slightly stalker-like even."

He shook his head violently. "Nah, more like…say…you guys knew each other pretty well…"

Keiko's mother instincts kicked in. "Like if we had become friends already? Maybe we were _best friends_ by that point."

Yoh nodded so forcefully that his headphones almost went flying. "Yeah! Exactly! Would you still be annoyed?"

Keiko tried to keep herself from smiling. "Yoh, honey, is this about Anna?"

Yoh reddened. "No! It's _not_!"

She looked at her son and poked him in the elbow. "Hmm?"

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Well…maybe a little bit…"

His mother laughed. "If I were in your situation, I would never be annoyed. If I cared about someone that much, I'd always want to hear from them as often as possible!" She grinned at him.

Yoh brightened up a little but then immediately proceeded to frown. "But…she hasn't written back in _ages_!" He sighed. "Maybe she _is_ annoyed with me…"

Keiko put Yoh's head on her shoulder. "No, sweetie, don't think like that. Maybe her letter just got lost in the mail. If I were you, I'd just write her again."

"I dunno…"

"Here, let me see the letters she wrote to you. She would at least give some sort of hint that she was annoyed in them." Yoh gaped at her. "What? You _do_ keep the letters. In the box underneath all your shoes in the closet, right?"

"_Mom!_ How do you know about that?" Yoh exclaimed, slightly embarrassed.

She looked at him expectantly. "Yoh…I'm your _mother_. It's my job to know these things."

* * *

Anna went back inside the house. "I'm done sweeping the porch, Kino."

"Eh, took you long enough. Go and finish up the pathway as well then."

"I already did."

Kino grumbled and paused in the prayer she was performing. "Fine. Go do the rest of your chores."

"I finished those too." Anna placed the broom back in the closet.

"You did, did you? Even polishing the floors of the hallways?" Kino studied her pupil carefully.

"Yes. I woke up early to do that."

She tapped her finger against her lip. "You woke up before five in the morning to get a head start on your chores? Interesting that you would do such a thing…"

Anna stiffened where she stood. "I wanted…to get my chores done…early…" she said lamely, her voice dropping by the end of her explanation.

"Really? So you dusted all the rooms?"

Anna nodded.

"And read your incantations for today?"

The girl bit her lip.

"And watered the plants outside, washed the dishes, prepared the ingredients for tonight's dinner, hung and ironed the laundry, cleaned the windows, and patched up the doormats?"

Anna's hands clenched up into fists.

"And on top of that, you were still able to go to the temple and pay respects to Matamune's spirit?" She grinned somewhat sinisterly. "It's almost like you worked through the entire night without sleeping."

"Yes…Kino…"

"Impressive." Kino back to stringing her beads through her fingers. "Too bad you only work this hard when you want something from me."

Anna's eyes widened but she still couldn't tear her gaze from the floor. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh drop the act, you idiot. You obviously wanted to please me so that I'd agree to whatever you asked." She finally set her beads down. "So what do you want? Extra food tonight? One less chore for tomorrow? I'm not guaranteeing anything though."

Anna closed her eyes and rocked back and forth a little on her feet. "I was just wondering…if anything arrived in the mail for me…" she said quietly.

"The mail? Why would anyone send anything to you?" Kino asked innocently. "Unless of course…there's something you'd like to tell me?"

Anna bowed her head even more.

"Well, is there? Is there something you'd like to say to me?"

"N-No…It's nothing. Nothing at all."

* * *

"Where…where is it?" Yoh asked as he frantically dug through his closet. "Where's the box?"

"Yoh, stop panicking. Did you check—"

"I checked the entire closet, mom!" he moaned. "I can't believe…where the heck could it go?"

"Relax, it's probably just…Yoh, a-are you crying?" Keiko knelt down beside him. "What's wrong?"

He angrily wiped at his tears. "I can't do anything right. Now that they're lost…it's like…it's like she never wrote to me at all."

* * *

_Yohmei—_

_I do not know if this is happening with Yoh as well, but ever since he left Mount Osore, Anna has been severely distracted. She is avoiding her chores and, even worse, she has begun to neglect her training. The cause of this poor performance and execution of her duties is that it appears that Yoh and Anna have been writing letters to each other, sometimes several times a week. When she isn't writing or reading those stupid letters, she is always daydreaming or spacing out, no doubt thinking about when the next when is going to arrive. When we first arranged the whole thing, I had no idea it would have gotten so out of hand._

_That's why I shall be starting to intercept the mail and withholding any letters that arrive for Anna. I expect you to do the same for any of Anna's letters that arrive for Yoh. Also, I have recently discovered that they have been keeping the letters. I have confiscated Anna's without her knowledge. You should do the same as well with Yoh._

_That way, we can pretend that they got lost in the mail. Or better yet, let them think that the other one doesn't want to talk to them anymore. That is the only way that we can ensure that Yoh and Anna focus on their training. We can't allow for any more distractions._

—_Kino_

Yohmei shook his head and sighed as he refolded the letter Kino had sent him a few weeks ago, dropping it into the box that he had taken from his grandson's room earlier. He listened to Yoh crying in the next room over.

He didn't know how much longer he could continue exploiting Yoh and Anna's innocence.

* * *

**A/N**: wait. i never would've guessed that this chapter would've been depressing D: aaah, what a jerk move, Kino! jerk move! anyways, we're nearing the end of the first year Anna and Yoh have known each other! ;D in chapters 11-20, Yoh and Anna will be 11 years old! reviews would be amazing! :) happy days! also, be sure to check out my fanfiction LiveJournal for updates! link is on my profile.

don't forget to review! ;D and check out my other updates! new chapter for _The Heavy Hearts Brigade_ and a new story _Europe Roundabout_!


	10. Breaking Away

**10. Breaking Away**

**

* * *

**Yoh simply stood outside in his shirt and pants, letting the snow fall on top of him. He had stayed in the exact same position for the past ten minutes, not moving, not doing anything. Just simply standing there. All of a sudden his eyes flew open and ripped off one of the icicles dangling from roof the house. He stared at the ice in his hand, feeling the crystallized water warm and turn into liquid. He let the water seep through his fingers as he turned the conical piece of ice over in his hand, looking at the texture of its surface, how uneven and rough and imperfect and—

"Stupid!" He hurled the icicle against the side of the house. His breaths came out of his mouth in short, steamy gasps as he angrily stared at the mark the ice had made on the wood of the Asakura residence. He broke off another one. "You stupid idiot!" He threw it, shattering the ice into countless numbers of shards. "Why can't you do anything right!" Another one. "Idiot!" And another. "Useless!" His hands began to numb and go so could that his fingers felt as if they were on fire. He had gotten so worked up that he was breathing irregularly, the oxygen coming in and leaving his system in jagged, visible bursts. His hands began to hurt but he found it funny that the more his hands burned from the frost, the less he felt the curious pain behind his sternum that had been going on for months.

"_And this is called the sternum, right class?" Their teacher turned around to make sure the students were following along. He tapped at the space on the model skeleton's frame to indicate where it was. "And what is behind the sternum?"_

_A hand beside Yoh flew up. "The heart!"_

"_Very good! That's right. Remember how people press down here," he tapped his chest, "during CPR? That's because they're trying to restart the heart. Give it a jump start, if you will."_

"Yoh! What are you doing?" Keiko called from outside. When she reached the sliding door, she froze. "Yoh! Come in here, right now! Are you out of your mind?" she shouted. When he showed no indication of moving she strode outside and yanked him by the back of his shirt. She sat him down on the chair in the kitchen. "What in the world were you doing out there with no jacket or mittens or a hat or a scarf—"

"Nothing," he mumbled, looking away.

"Well, you were obviously doing something, judging by the temperature of your hands. What, were you playing with the snow?" she asked as she began filling a tub with hot water for him.

"No. That's for kids. I'm not a kid," he replied quickly. "I'm not," he repeated as if to convince her.

"Uh…huh…Honey, you know you're ten years old, right? If you're not a kid at your age, then I have no idea what definition you're using." She stripped his socks off and dunked his feet into the hot water. "Let your feet sit in there for a while."

"_No_. Kids…they…they let their feelings take over them and…and they cry and show that they're weak…and…"

"Yoh, crying isn't a sign of weakness."

"Yes it is!" he proclaimed a bit too emphatically. "Because when y-you cry it shows that you're still not over whatever you're crying about and that you're not strong enough to…to…"

"Break away completely?" his mother asked, raising one of her eyebrows. "Come here, you." When he didn't move she grabbed the back of his head and pressed it against her shoulder. "My poor baby…" she sighed. "Let it out now."

"Mmphhhbhh!"

She let go of his head. "What?"

"I said that I can't breathe!" His face reddened.

"Tell me what's wrong."

He frowned and then shook his head and then nodded and then pursed his lips and then scratched the back of his head. He finally just threw his hands up in defeat. "Grandma and grandpa aren't allowing me to cry…they say only weak kids do that…And I don't wanna be a weak kid!"

"You still held onto that?" She pointed to the melting icicle still clutched in his hand.

"Did you even listen to what I said?" Yoh asked, slightly irritation.

She looked at him pointedly in what she liked to call her 'Shut-up-I'm-about-to-teach-you-life-lesson' look. It had a rather nice ring to it. At least, that's what she liked to think. "Let go of it."

Yoh shrugged. "Okay." He looked at his fist and then…

Nothing happened. "What the heck!" He looked at his hand and willed it to open, frustration and increasing anxiety evident on his face. "I…I can't let go of it!"

"See?" she asked with a smug grin on her face.

"No! I don't! And now I have an icicle stuck to my hand and I won't ever be able to get it off!" he said, panicking.

She rolled her eyes but smiled slightly. "Shush." She pushed him over and dunked his hand into the hot water. "There you go."

He whimpered as he studied his hand.

"Wait here." Keiko left the room momentarily and returned a little later with another icicle. "Take it."

"Do I have to?" Yoh asked pitifully, fearing that this one would also latch onto his skin.

"Yes." She pushed it into his grasp. "Pretend that…your relationship with Anna is that icicle. Pretend whatever you had, whatever went on between you two is that right there."

"Okay."

"Now break it."

"_What_." Yoh frowned. How was _this_ supposed to make him feel better?

"Break it, break it. You'll understand soon enough," she said encouragingly.

He begrudgingly snapped the piece of ice in half, hating to thin of what that action symbolized.

"So that's your relationship with her after you were separated, right?" Keiko continued. "Well, what was your relationship with her made out of before you were separated?"

"Ice?" Yoh answered.

"And what is your relationship made out of afterwards?"

"Ice."

"See, so even if you two are broken apart, it doesn't change whatever you had or have between you and her. The ice is still the same, right?"

It began to dawn on him. "Yeah…it is…"

"Over time, the ice will melt into water, yes? But ice was really just frozen…?"

"Water!"

"Exactly. The icicle was a good metaphor for the love you and Anna shared because it was tangible…you could see it and you knew exactly what it was." Keiko tapped the melting ice on the table. "But even after it melts completely, even after it evaporates and you can't see it anymore, nothing will ever, _ever_ change the fact that it's still water in the end." She picked up the icicle once more. "Even after you're separated from her…" She snapped off a piece of the icicle. "And she's separated from you…" She broke off another piece. "You're still part of this…you're both a part of it no matter what."

"W-Wow…" Yoh blinked. "I…never thought of it that way."

"Honey, that's why all boys your age need a mother." Keiko smiled. "And you know what the best part is?"

"What?"

"Everything is a cycle. Just as all the icicles in the world are bound to melt and all the water is inevitably going to evaporate, all the water vapor is going to come back down to earth as rain. And then it will freeze again once more. It'll take a long time…heck, no one knows exactly how long or when it will happen, but one thing is for sure: that water vapor is going to end up frozen as an icicle once again. All you have to do is wait. You'll see, she'll come back to you. You won't know when, you won't know how, but she'll come back to you. Just wait and see."

* * *

**A/N_: Critical Condition is updated! review? :)_**

**_i wish Keiko was my mom...  
_**


	11. Letting Go

**11. Letting Go**

* * *

_"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over."_

– **Gloria Naylor**

* * *

"Yoh? Are you sure you don't want to take a break?" Yohmei asked curiously as he hunched over Yoh's nearly unconscious figure.

The boy somehow found enough energy to shake his head from side to side. "N-No. I feel fine. Perfectly fine. See." He attempted to push himself off of the ground but fell promptly back down. "Urgh…okay, maybe one wouldn't hurt." He rolled himself onto his stomach and then slowly stood up before walking as fast as he could without collapsing back to the house.

"I never would have guessed…And here I thought Yoh was going to be lazy for the rest of his life." But somehow Yohmei couldn't bring himself to feel happy about it. "Yoh?"

The boy paused before sliding the door open and turned around. "Yeah, grandpa?"

"Good work today."

The boy's smile was empty and his wave half-hearted as he shrugged. "I guess."

Yohmei frowned as the door shut behind his grandson. For the past month, Yoh had thrown himself into his training, quite a remarkable difference from how he would usually shirk his chores and skip out on Yohmei's lessons. "Ever since Yoh and Anna have been forbidden from writing to each other… Though Yoh is showing incredible improvements and progress, I'd rather have my grandson have the heart he used to have. Without his spirit and heart intact, all the training in the world won't do anything for him."

He suddenly lurched forward as something bumped into him.

"Ah, s-sorry, Master Yohmei," Tamao apologized hurriedly, bowing repeatedly. "I wasn't watching where I was going. I'm so sorry…" The little girl shuffled away quickly.

"It's quite al—hold on, Tamao?" Yohmei called out to her.

The small girl froze and turned around slowly. "Y-Yes?"

"Have you…since you and Yoh are so close in age perhaps you can…yes, you'll do. Have you noticed anything…_different_ about Yoh recently?" he asked, concern flooding his voice by the end of his inquiry.

Tamao was deeply infatuated with Yoh and knew full well that if she said anything that indicated that he _was_ in fact still sad over his lack of communication with Anna, then Yohmei, willing and able to do anything to help Yoh become the best shaman he can be, would let the young fiancées resume their relationships. But then again, Yoh was not only the object of her affections; he was also her solitary friend (as everyone knows, Ponchi and Conchi do not count since…well…they're Ponchi and Conchi). And as much as it pained her to see Yoh fawning over another girl, his best interests as her friend mattered more.

"Y-Yes. I have…" she said. "I think…It's about Anna."

Yohmei frowned and then sighed. "He still hasn't let go of her or his memories of her, has he?"

Tamao paused. "I…I think he has. Just not in the way that you think. I…I think you believe that letting go is supposed to be for himself…and that it's a bad thing…a painful thing…"

Yohmei drew his eyebrows together. "Do tell."

"He has let go…It's just that…that it's a good thing. It's not just for h-himself but for Anna too. I think that's what friends do sometimes. I think they're supposed to sometimes."

* * *

"Hmm…" Kino studied her pupil who was currently watching the television, her small back facing the seasoned itako.

Anna shifted uncomfortably, not enjoying Kino's sightless eyes boring into her back.

"Hmm…"

Anna had long stopped paying attention to the program that was playing on the screen.

"Hmm…"

"Kino," Anna said, her voice cracking. "Do you need something?" She fought the nagging urge to jump up and run away, fully aware that whatever Kino was thinking, it was not good.

"Well…"

Anna's eye twitched. _Not good at all_.

"I was mistaken about you," Kino finally sighed, her voice sounding resigned.

Anna blinked in surprise and turned around to face the blind itako. "Wh-What?"

"I was mistaken. I thought that you were so…_human_ as to let your feelings interfere with your training." She paused. "Your duty to the Asakura family. But you have proven yourself to me."

"I don't think…I'm following you…" Anna said slowly.

"Well, I thought that somehow you had fallen in love…except love is much too strong a word for whatever kids experience nowadays. But let's say that _you_ of all people are capable of loving another person, I thought that you actually loved my grandson." She smiled but it looked more like an evil grimace to Anna. "I'm actually proud for once of you. You didn't. You put on quite a convincing show. Though when you and Yoh actually get married, that might be a bit misleading since he is under the impression that you actually love him—Anna, where are you going?" Kino asked as she heard Anna's retreating footsteps against the hard wood floors.

"I can't—" _I can't listen to this utter garbage that you're spewing right now. I...care about Yoh._

"You can't what?" Kino fell silent. "Interesting, and I thought that you have let go of Yoh and whatever feelings you had harbored towards him."

Anna clenched her teeth together before telling the biggest lie of her life. "I…have…"

"Good. Then I suppose you won't care when we go back to Izumo to visit Yoh and Yohmei in a few days."

Anna whirled around. "_What_?" She had been expecting almost anything. Except for that. She hadn't anticipated the chance that she would be seeing Yoh so suddenly, so soon to when she had started pretending to not care.

"I thought you said that you had let go already," Kino said tauntingly.

"I have," Anna said defiantly. "Just not in the way or for the reasons you think."

* * *

**A/N**: sorry to keep Yoh and Anna apart for so long but this chapter needed to happen. Don't worry, I'll keep them together for quite a while :) Interesting enough, I wasn't writing this because I couldn't really think of a good topic/theme to address this prompt with. But then I came across that Gloria Naylor quotation...and then this little short basically wrote itself :) So what do you think? I think letting go is seen as a negative, painful thing for most people, like moving to a new place like college and being separated from your friends or a breakup but letting go can also be very good and healthy...sometimes even _needed_ at certain points in your life. But Yoh and Anna's situation is different because as soon as they learned to let each other go in the right way, they're being thrown back into each other's lives...as you'll see in the next chapter ;)

also, i've been updating like crazy on my fanfic livejournal--check it out!: shatteredlyre . livejournal . com (and i'd love if people friended me on LJ too :D)

I also made a formspring for you guys. because i'm bored and i'm stuck at home for spring break: formspring . me / shatteredlyre (ask me questions haha)

Also, check out the new _My Commensal_ I put up a few days ago (it's a YohAnna!) and my new RenPiri story, _Stupid Questions _and FFNet has been really weird lately so if you haven't seen Chapter 12 of _Critical Condition_ (though i don't see how you can't...it's been a month...haha) go read it!_  
_

wow, this author's note is really long...sorry guys heheh. oh and lastly, i'd LOVE to hear from you guys! :D Review please? :)


	12. Darkness

**12. Darkness**

**

* * *

**"Thirteen…fourteen…fifteen…sixteen," Anna recited under her breath, trying to see how many fence posts she could count before her eyes began watering from a lack of blinking and she had to shut them, causing her field of vision to change from the snowy Japan countryside to the dark view of the backs of her eyelids.

"Twenty-seven," she hurriedly muttered and filed away in her mind before clenching her eyes shut, submerging her sight into darkness.

"…And I expect you to be on your best behavior as the entire Asakura extended family will be there to observe you and thus critique my selection of pupil and wisdom in choosing a fiancée for Yoh…" Kino droned on, oblivious to the fact that Anna was trying her very best to ignore her.

She blinked, opening her eyes that were still tearing up and began her inane yet obsessively compulsive game she was playing with herself. _Or rather,_ _against myself_, Anna thought, preparing to count yet again. _This time, I'll count electrical wire towers_.

"_You…you…my headphones…look at them, they're nothing but a mess of broken plastic and electrical wires now." His genuinely saddened eyes looked at her accusingly._

Anna clutched at her knees. _No. Stop it. Calm yourself. We're at the second to last stop before Izumo…and Yoh's house. Stupid New Years. Stupid everything. _She tried blocking the image out of her head but it backfired and Anna found herself wondering if this was how Yoh had felt on his own train ride to Osorezan when he had traveled to see her. _Calm down_, she ordered her mind, starting to count again in an attempt to keep herself distracted from thinking of Yoh. _Calm down._

"One_._"

"_Calm down, Anna. Come on, you can do it," Yoh said pleadingly as she collapsed down onto the ground, beginning to reign in the demon she had unleashed. He sprinted over to her as she splayed out onto the frost crusted dirt, looking panicked and pained as he cradled her in his arms and then—_

"Two_._"

"_Does she…does she hate me? W-What did I do to her…I really hope she doesn't hate me…" a half-neurotic Yoh said out loud on the street after Anna had passed him and threatened to kill the boy. Anna stood silently around the corner, her back pressed against the wall of the building, listening to him anxiously muse to himself—_

"Three."

_She wanted to scream for him. She wanted to yell at him to run away, to leave her, to save himself from this huge monster she had created. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his battle. But yet, as she stilled her stirrings, he kept fighting and fighting and fighting. For her. To help her. But why, she didn't understand, why would he do that for her—_

"Four."

"_What is she doing?" Yoh asked in wonder as Awayaringo crooned and shrieked away on the television. "She looks like something out of my nightmares," he laughed teasingly. After seeing the look at Anna's face, he broke out into a grin. "Ah, come on, I was only joking." He stretched back and put his hands behind his head—_

"Five."

"_I could never forget you," he said brightly. "You're my fiancée after all!" he exclaimed as if trying to push her buttons, knowing full well that she didn't like it when he used that word. "And don't you ever forget that! Okay? Okay!" He brought his hand up, pausing as it passed hers almost as if he was about to half-consciously hold her hand. But at the last second, he jerked his hand up and shoved it into his jacket pocket—_

"Six."

"_Anna, I'm not…" Yoh hesitated, still facing the shut door behind which Anna was curled up into a ball, angry at herself. She breathed slowly, willing herself to not cry. She could already imagine him standing up and exiting the room, leaving her by herself. But then she heard his voice again. "I'm not going to leave you."_

"Seven."

"_Dear Anna," she could practically hear him speaking the words in his usual happy voice as she read his letter. "Training's been boring as usual. So is school and chores and everything that grandpa says. Actually, everything's been boring ever since I came back to Izumo. I hope you can visit soon." She gave a small laugh as she saw how many times he had written, crossed out, and rewritten 'Love, Yoh' at the bottom of the paper—_

"Eight."

"_Let's go to the temple, okay? And then you can go and pray to the gods there and maybe they can help you. It won't be that bad, it can even be fun if you let it be fun. Come on, Anna—" He stepped back from the door he had been talking to as she came out of her room. He blinked rapidly as if trying to get his eyes accustomed to the sight of Anna in a yukata, his mouth slightly hanging open—_

"Nine."

"_I believe in you," he said suddenly out of the blue. "I believe in you even if no one else does." He flashed her a thumbs up and she was left to wonder what had gotten into him to say that so unexpectedly. His regular cheery grin changed into a small, thoughtful smile as he lowered his hand and turned around and walked away from her. "Even if you don't believe in yourself," he said quietly—_

"Ten."

"_Ah…um, hold on," he said, trying to tie a knot so that the bandanna stayed on her head securely. Her face burnt up as she was unaccustomed to someone being so physically close to her. "There." Oddly enough, when he stepped back, his face was bright red as well. "It l-looks good on you," he said, laughing nervously and scratching his head as—_

"Eleven."

_He stared at her from his seat on the train as she looked back at him from her own seat, the two of them facing each other. Several times, both had opened their mouths to speak but something didn't feel quite right. They decided instead to remain silent. They didn't need words to communicate with each other. And it wasn't awkward or uncomfortable. It was right, just right for them. Then they both smiled and suddenly, even if for just that one moment in time, everything was going right in the world—_

The train lurched and she staggered back into consciousness, finding herself back in her seat next to the still talking Kino and her own eyes watery.

Though her eyes tearing up probably was more a result of the memories that her game had triggered than her lack of blinking.

She looked outside as they passed one final electrical wire tower as the train began slowing down and rolling into the Izumo station.

"Twelve."

And then she shut her eyes and plunged into darkness.

* * *

**A/N**: what. the. eff. I swear to god, when I opened this word document, I was going to type up an outline for my psychology test. and then this thing comes along and writes itself and next thing I know I have nearly three pages of _Our Story_ on what was once a clean, pristine word document. strange. anyways, i hope you enjoyed it! if you weren't clear on it, Kino and Anna are on their way to the Asakura residence in Izumo for a New Years party.

**Please leave a review! **I'd like to know what you thought :) and don't worry, next chapter Yoh and Anna are reunited! awkwardly. but still! :) and check out my new story _Testimonies_ and this: www . shatteredlyre . livejournal . com

Happy days, beautiful people!


	13. Light

**13. Light**

* * *

_"It's like when God said 'Let there be light' and then there was light..."_

* * *

"Anna? Anna? Anna?" She was vaguely aware of someone pushing her roughly on the shoulder.

_Stop it._

"Anna!" The shaking grew more insistent.

_Stop—_

She finally opened her eyes for the first time since the train. Fluorescent light flooded her eyes as the rods and cones in her cornea scrambled to make the adjustment. Everything was much too bright, much too illuminated for her to register anything properly. And then her eyes came onto focus.

And then she saw Yoh.

They blinked dumbly at one another, both unable to believe that they were facing the other for the first time in months.

"Anna…" Kino hissed and prodded her in the ribs and the girl suddenly became aware that everyone in the Asakura household was looking at her. "Say something!"

She looked helplessly at Kino and then back to Yoh and then back to Kino, her head growing fuzzy and disoriented until

"You're so stupid!"

Everyone went silent, even Anna herself who just realized what she just said.

"W-What?" Yoh swallowed painfully.

_Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking_— "You never wrote back, I hate you!" And yet she couldn't stop talking because he was standing in front of her and he had seen her with her eyes closed and those bright spots that kept wavering in front of her face was obscuring her view of him and she couldn't see his face properly unless those bright spots went away— "You're so dumb!"

Kino put her hand on her pupil's shoulder. "Anna, that is quite enough—"

"Don't touch me!" she snapped. "Stop it! Just stop it, all of you. I don't know what you all were expecting. Some proper lady that little Lord Yoh was going to get engaged to. That I have perfect manners and am bright and cheerful and friendly and that I exceed your expectations and standards. But don't get your hopes up. Don't get excited. Hell, Kino can tell you all of that. I'm not like that. So buzz off all of you!" she stormed into the hallway and out of everyone's sight.

She angrily stripped her coat off and slumped down on the ground near the closet, crossing her arms in front of her. _Stupid guests, stupid Kino, stupid house, stupid party, stupid engagement, stupid expectations, stupid—_

"Wow."

She looked up to see Yoh. _Stupid Yoh._

"No one has ever…no one has ever told everyone off like that before."

"Why, you got a problem with that?" she grumbled.

He laughed nervously, not entirely sure how she would react. "Nah, it was pretty cool. Sometimes I want to yell at everyone like that too. Problem is…" He leaned his back against the wall and slumped down onto the ground to join her on the floor.

"Problem is? Problem is what?"

"I'm not strong enough as you."

She snorted. "Please. You don't need to be strong to do that."

He cocked his head to the side. "Really? Then what do you need."

She shrugged. "I dunno. I guess, I just got really mad and a million things were just rushing through my head and…and then everything just stopped for a second and…and what I had to do showed up in my mind, as bright as this really strong light and then…" She shrugged once more. "Then I did it."

"Huh, that's awesome."

She wanted to smile but then remembered that she was supposed to be mad at him. "I shouldn't be talking to you. I'm supposed to be angry because you never wrote back," she said accusingly, crossing her arms in front of her chest and glaring full blast at him.

"What are you talking about—"

"You know full well what I'm talking about, Asakura Yoh!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"_You're_ the one who never wrote back—"

She slammed her fist against the closet. "Stop lying to—"

A box fell out of the closet and hit her square on top of the head.

"Ow! What the h—"

Yoh quickly retrieved the box and opened the top. "Wait a minute…" He shuffled through all its contents. "These are…"

"All the letters I wrote to you?" She blinked, not entirely sure what to make out of it.

"Yeah, they just mysteriously disappeared one day and…" It slowly dawned on him.

"You kept all of them…" She said quietly, looking fondly at all the letters she had written to him as if it brought back all the memories.

"Anna, I think I know what happened," Yoh said shakily. "I know that I never stopped writing to you and I know that you never stopped writing to me…right?"

She looked at him. "I never…stopped. I never stopped, Yoh." _I never stopped loving you_.

* * *

"…And then when God said 'Let there be love' and then there was you."

* * *

**A/N**: yes, I am shamelessly copying and pasting this author's note to all my updates today (count 'em: FOUR UPDATES, GUYS)

other things I'm updating tonight:

1. _**Critical Condition: **_ONE MONTH HIATUS. I'M BACK.

2. _**The Mismatched Adventures of Tao Boy and Ainu Girl**_: HOLY SHIT, I'M BACK FROM FIVE MONTH HIATUS.

3. _**Blackbird Singing**_: on what it means to be a sibling (Yoh/Hao--not romantic, more family than anything else)

PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER (mind you, I'm running on one piece of toast....I probably should go and eat something now. meh.)

Check out _Testimonies_ and _Strangers_ and that will make me happy.

And...if you're interested in the **contest**, please go to my profile and clink on the contest info link there. it would be awesome if you commented on the LJ post so it'll be easier to see who is participating (people who don't have a livejournal can still comment! I've enabled anonymous commenting)

KTHANKS. and thank you for all the offers to help out with the prizes guys! I'll personally respond to all your reviews on all my stories after AP's.

I'm so proud of myself. So productive.

**Don't forget to leave a review!**

happy days! and check me out!: shatteredlyre . livejournal . com


	14. Emptiness

**14. Emptiness**

**

* * *

**Anna wanted to get one thing straight before anyone in the world started anything at any time anywhere.

She totally had the intentions on serving Kino and Yohmei one big fat piece of her mind. Lettin' 'em have it. Laying out the verbal whips that the span of her (somewhat limited) lexicon would allow for. No one, and she would like to repeat, _no one_ slights Kyoyama Anna and is privileged enough to tell the tale over tea, biscuits, and hazy, nostalgic memories of glory days passed.

But as she was working up the courage, the words that would spill forth from her angry, enraged, eleven year old lips, as she was pacing back and forth inside the empty room, as she balled her hands up into fists, letting the frustration and indignant dormant woman inside of her boil up to a point she would've fainted, because, gosh darnit, she was infuriated! She was furious! She was…she was…

Nothing.

Anna blinked, nearly slipping on the wooden floors of the quiet room as she realized this. She felt absolutely nothing. The anger, the rage, the fury, the _it's-you-and-me-against-the-world-baby_ feeling she had been radiating earlier. It was all gone.

_How is this? What…_ If anything, the thing she was most angry about was that she had lost the fervor of her passionate, righteous infuriation rather than the secrets she and Yoh had discovered earlier. Nope, it was all gone, leaving an uncomfortable, growing emptiness that sat hollowly in its place in her stomach, gnawing away at her being until she decided what to do.

So she decided to slump down onto the floor and stare at the wall.

There was a soft knock at the doorframe. "Hey…Anna?" Yoh peered into the bare room and tentatively walked inside and sat down next to each other.

Strange, isn't it? How they had waited months upon months to see each other, had millions of things to write to each other about in their letters, events, stories and memories abounding to the point of perhaps threatening their mental capacity with the sheer amount, just waiting to be shared. But now that they were alone, together, reunited in that small, isolated room, they opted to sit together and just exist together in silence.

Or perhaps, enjoy the silence hanging comfortingly between them together as if the lack of words was a mutual understanding, a reassurance of what they had been feeling all this time.

Because, finally, the emptiness in both of their lives had finally been filled in but never forgotten.

* * *

**A/N**: short but eh I hate it when that happens. Ever have that happen to you? So full of indignant, righteous anger (and most of the time, very justified) but then you just lose all of it and you wonder what the hell just happened? Well, it's happened to me on more than one occasion.

ANYWAYS, if y'all could be so kind as to check out my new story **_Saved!_** which is RenPiri (even though there aren't a ton of RenPiri fans here anymore...oh well...it'd still be nice. cuz I worked really hard on it and all).

Oh and **don't forget to review** this chapter (especially those who fave and put my stories on alerts)! Because I think I might start working on the next chapter of this soon.


	15. Strange

**15. Strange**

**

* * *

**"It's…strange…isn't it?" Anna asked the night sky as she took another bite of the sweets Yoh had managed to sneak out.

He tilted his head towards her, tearing his gaze from the stars that peppered the darkness they were sitting under. "What is?"

"All those months…don't they…I don't know…" She clenched her teeth together, somewhat flustered that Yoh was seeing her at a loss for words. "They seem like—"

"A distant memory?" He nodded emphatically, as he wiped his hands on his pants and proceeded to unwrap a candy bar. "Now it feels like I never left at all, right?" He broke off a piece and handed it to her.

She simply blinked down at it, cradling the chocolate fragment in her cupped hands. "What is this?" she asked snippily, not wanting to let him know that she had never seen such a thing in her entire life.

He cocked his head to the side in confusion and smiled a bit uncertainly. "Wait, are you serious?"

She shot him a murderous, homicidal look, her eyes narrowing quickly, daring him to repeat his question.

He scooted away from her very subtly but still obvious enough for Anna to just barely notice it and the smile dropped off of his face. "You've…never eaten a chocolate bar before? It's candy. It's good!"

Anna sniffed it, not trusting the seemingly harmless appearance of the now melting concoction that sat in her hands. Her gaze fixed onto him again. "What does it taste like?" she barked.

He shrugged. "It tastes like…like…uh…" He frowned as he realized that he could not, in fact, describe the taste of chocolate. "Um…It tastes like…chocolate…?" he offered lamely.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Are _you_ serious?" She turned her nose up in the air, all the dignity in the world and melting chocolate in her hands.

He crumpled up the empty wrapper and stuck it in his pocket. "You're weird."

She smirked. "_I'm_ not the one speechless here when I ask a simple question of you." She tentatively took a bite of the candy in her hand and once she tasted it…stuffed the rest of it in her mouth. "You're the strange one here," she declared, chewing forcefully before swallowing and rubbing her arms to warm herself.

He shook his head, smiling. "Cold?"

"Yes, but I want to stay out here."

The young Asakura heir studied her figure. "I still think you're a full fledged weirdo." He laughed softly looking back up at the sky, stars, moon, the heavens. "Staying out here when you're freezing cold and only wearing a thin robe…" He shook his head.

She stood up and straightened out said thin robe, stretching her numb legs out a bit on the porch of the house. "It's strange, isn't it? Us being…you know. And yet, somehow, everything works. Everything still goes on in the world." He stared, his mouth agape and his face reddening as she smirked and approached the sliding door and pushed it open. "Who's the weirdo now?" And then she was gone.

"I suppose it's both of us, then, isn't it?" He sighed and turned back towards the night sky, looking at the encroaching city that was slowly creeping towards the nature he so loved, the distant honks of city cars mingling with the chirping of the insects that had somehow found shelter during the winter. The constant bullying that had seemed so important back then, the biggest thing in his life, the most hurtful when there were wars going on in the world, disease ridden villages, starving children, murderers on the loose. Now he can barely recall the foggiest of memories of his life before Anna, the jagged ends of their bittersweet farewell a year ago in Osore and their just as bittersweet reunion in Izumo today having been sewn together, as if his mind was determined to cut out the strange, lonely period of his life of the last year that hadn't included her. The strikingly clear memories back in the Osorezan region and the continuity of it all startled him. He laughed a long and hard laugh as he realized that subconsciously, unconsciously did, indeed, define his life in two parts: with Anna and without Anna.

"Everything still goes on in the world. Everything still goes on."

* * *

**A/N**: wasn't planning on writing a chapter for _Our Story_ today but here you go. I needed a break from doing research on my latest one-shot, _Down the Rabbit Hole_ :)

Anyways, originally, I had planned on doing an _Our Story_ collection for each one of my OTPs. But then recently, I realized that it wasn't really realistic or practical. Fortunately enough, some of your fellow SK readers/writers decided to pick them up ! Long story short, **elviella has adopted the HoroTam _Our Story_ series and has posted the first two chapters.** GO CHECK HER OUT: fanfiction . net / ~elviella (**sOrbetes **has picked up the Ren/Pirika _OS_ and **roni-chan** has adopted the Faust/Eliza one...I think. You guys are still up for it? Haha also, the _Our Stories_ for Lyserg/Jeanne and Pailong/Jun are still up for adoption!)

check me out: shatteredlyre . livejournal . com (remove spaces)

ALSO, interested in doing a **_Shaman King_ fanfic contest**? Please, please, _please_ check it out! Link for contest info is on my profile page! :)

I'm planning on editing and revising _Yoh and the Oni_. Because I reread part of it. And died a little inside. So I'll be doing some editing (grammatical stuff, minor characterization things, etc). And then I'll update it. Yes, you read that correctly. **I'm updating _Yoh and the Oni_ with an epilogue.** Because even if it makes me cringe sometimes, I still love it to death. So be on the lookout for that.

**_Please leave a review_. Especially if you have this story or myself on your story/author faves and alerts. Please.**


	16. You Remain the Same

**16. You Remain the Same**

**

* * *

**"Hey, Anna!" Yoh called cheerfully, stamping his feet on the concrete in an effort to get his circulation flowing a bit more efficiently and generate some amount of body warmth. (Needless to say, this attempt proved fruitless.)

Anna, sulky as ever since they had left the house and party, slowly turned around and glared at him. Though, Yoh couldn't help but notice that the intensity of said glare was very mild in comparison to those she had shot him in the past. "What…" she grumbled, rather than snapping at him.

Yoh laughed nervously, wondering if he should test his luck. Anna had been very miserable ever since Yoh had more than eagerly accepted his mother's invitation to join her on an expedition to the grocery store downtown to restock on sake (which had magically depleted ever since Anna's enraged outburst). _Well, what could I do? There were way too many close calls already…I'm running out of hiding spaces for me and Anna whenever I hear grandma approaching…_ Yoh lamely justified to himself. In reality, he simply wanted more time to spend with Anna without the doom and gloom of the inevitable showdown with his grandmother. _For someone who lived in the mountains all her life, she sure hates the cold…_

"What do you want?" she asked, sounding more like herself.

"Huh?"

She rolled her eyes and grit her teeth, her face looking somewhat akin to a wet, wretched cat. "You called my name earlier?" Her voice lowered so that Keiko couldn't hear her. "Ever the slow one…"

He shrugged happily. "You're pretty much the same too since the last time I saw you."

She muttered something again as the three of them approached a pedestrian crosswalk.

"Did you know that it's good luck to step on the black spaces?"

She turned her head and stared at him long and hard. "What? Where did you get that idiotic superstition from?" She briskly set out as they began crossing the street, deliberately stepping on the white painted lines.

He placed his hands behind his head. "Suit yourself. Oh and by the way it's bad luck if you step on the white spaces." He could hardly contain himself as he saw that she faltered behind him, momentarily pausing before she resumed her trek across the street. Except this time, she was paying particular attention to making sure she stepped on the black asphalt gaps in between the white painted lines.

As soon as Anna rejoined Yoh and Keiko on the other side, the boy exploded into a violent fit of laughter. "No way!"

Anna crossed her arms in front of her defensively, self-conscious and yet still murderous. "What?"

"I can't believe you…" Here, Yoh paused to wipe away tears that were forming in his eyes. "I can't believe you actually…" He doubled over, clutching at his stomach. "You fell for it!"

Anna drew her eyebrows together crossly and reddened in embarrassment, her hands curling into outraged fists. "I…I did _not_!" she huffed, storming forth only to stop after a few seconds since she realized she had no idea where the grocery store was.

They didn't speak to each other until they entered the huge supermarket. "I didn't know you were so gullible."

"I didn't know you were so immature." She sniffed. "Ever the same." She looked in awe at the fluorescent and linoleum haven that stood before her. "This…this is where you go to buy your food?"

"Yeah…weird, isn't it?"

"What is that…" She asked rather flatly, stopping before the escalators that led to the second floor of the store.

"An escalator…They're moving stairs," Yoh explained as he hopped onto the mobile steps, enjoying the curious expression that she always had whenever he introduced her to something new. _Still the same…_

Anna hesitantly jumped onto them, scared that she might slip and cause further damage to her already wounded pride. She grumbled something along the lines of, "What, are people now too lazy to even climb stairs by themselves?" Or something.

Yoh's eyes momentarily lit up as he was stuck by yet another just flat out _brilliant_ idea. "You know actually…this supermarket is actually kind of famous for something…"

"Not interested," Anna stated monotonously but her expression reflected that she was, indeed, interested.

"Aw, come on, aren't you gonna ask what it's famous for?"

Anna could have won a prize for standing remarkably still if they held contests for that sort of thing.

"It takes exactly one minute and sixteen seconds to reach the top…They say that if you can hold your breath that long, then whatever you wish for comes true!"

"Mmhmm."

Yoh frowned, trying to suppress a smile. "It's up to you."

Anna clutched at the rubberized handle of the escalator as she began shaking a little. Yoh could've sworn her face was almost blue.

He looked at her quizzically. "What are you doing?"

She simply turned away from him.

He poked at her. "Anna…"

She began gasping for air.

Yoh froze, his finger still pointed out at her before he grabbed onto the side of the escalator to prevent himself from falling. "You fell for it again!"

"You're still such a child!" Anna, still shuddering from her lack of oxygen intake, hopped off the escalator and smacked him upside the head. "I did no such thing!" She looked up at Keiko when the older woman began smiling at her. "I didn't!" she protested to her future mother-in-law.

Anna walked ahead as Keiko hung back and stared at Yoh.

"Come on, mom, I was just teasing…"

Her mother raised an eyebrow.

"Fine, I'll stop…Do you think she's actually upset?"

Keiko motioned in Anna's general direction. "You're asking the wrong person."

Yoh jogged a bit to catch up with his surprisingly calm fiancée. He opened his mouth to apologize but was promptly cut off. "Did you know that if your palm is larger than your face, you have a longer life expectancy?"

Yoh blinked. He was not expecting…_this_. "Huh?"

"It's true. People live longer if they do for some reason." Her poker face was as unmoving as a glacier. Yoh studied her but she was absolutely unreadable. Besides, the thought intrigued him. "Really?" He lifted his palm to his face and then—

Anna smacked his face using his own hand. Yoh opened and shut his eyes, trying to make the pretty, flashing stars disappear from his vision. "I…suppose I deserved that."

Keiko smiled down at her. "Feel better?"

Anna didn't even bother trying to hide the grin on her face. "Yes. I do." But for once, there wasn't a hint of sadism or malice in her voice as she turned to Yoh.

* * *

**A/N**: because all couples tease each other. even Yoh and Anna. loosely based on a scene from the Korean drama _My Girl_. also, this is the result of me spending four hours babysitting my two six year old cousins (which would explain a lot in this chapter haha).

I would like to point out that _**my ****Master List of Fanfiction has been updated**_ (link on my profile page) and is now very thorough and in detail. It took me several days but now it's pretty. and nice. and I'm happy with it. and according to it, I have 49 stories that are planned, in progress or completed. so go take a look and **tell me which planned story you'd like me to start** (other than Bad Romance...I've gotten quite a few requests for me to start on that already haha).

**I'm discontinuing _All My Heart_** because...and this is rather embarrassing...I forgot entirely where I was going with the story (I should probably start writing down actual notes and outlines from now on...sigh). It really tears me up to do this because I _hate_ scrapping stories but I honest to god only came to this decision after thinking about it for several days. Anyone want to adopt it?

**don't forget about the SK fanfic contest! **and check out my livejournal for other updates concerning my other stories (because this author's note is getting too long)**  
**

Check out my latest **YohAnna one-shot**, **_Boxes_**! Thank you very much. It's also very exciting that people are actually asking me questions on my formspring!

**Please leave me a review! **As much as it makes me very, _very_ happy indeed to see that people are putting my stories on their faves or alerts, that happiness is rather short lived since I realize that I don't know what you guys actually _think_ about the story. So please, tell me what you think and leave a review! ;)

Happy days!


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